Designing the Web: Photoshop Tutorials for Designing a Website

For those of us in the business of designing the web, one area of resources that always prove invaluable to have in our design arsenals is tutorials. Learning how other web designers have crafted their designs, and which tools they always rely on can always help to guide us as we are either developing or honing our own skills. So we search the web for useful tutorials. Well today we have done the searching for you.

Given that Photoshop is one of the most powerful and popular graphics programs for web design related projects, we decided to turn our focus in that direction for the search. And our search yielded some wonderfully informative results! Split up among two pages, we have compiled a small handful of great Photoshop tutorials for designing a website. We hope you find them as handy as we do.

Designing the Web

This tutorial from Design Instruct will show you how to create a web layout with a sleek and modern look using Adobe Photoshop. The process will take you from finding sources of inspiration to setting up the document in Photoshop and creating design elements that fit with the theme of the web layout. It also gives you some practical examples of how using smart objects in a web design project can improve your workflow and save you some time.

In this tutorial from Webdesign Tuts+ you will learn how simple, straight forward design techniques can create a clean community blog theme in Photoshop. A few techniques discussed in this tutorial include the use of proper spacing, typography, colors and visual hierarchy.

This tutorial from blog.SpoonGraphics takes you through creating a website with a nice and clean layout making use of a contrasting header area to draw in the user. Otherwise the concept is styled with large typography and subtle details on the interface elements. You will be using various effects, blending modes and layer styles to create all the detailed elements of the design.

In this tutorial from Visual Swirl you will be shown how to craft a clean, minimal website design using some simple techniques in Photosop. This open layout lends itself well to showcasing visual arts as the work will stand out against the minimal design.

In this tutorial from 1stWebDesigner you will learn how to create a sharp 3D like portfolio design using simple gradients and other effects to add depth and a layered look. Using dark colors and crafting corresponding elements to put this portfolio together in simple fashion, this tutorial is certainly worth going through.

In this intermediate level tutorial from Webdesign Tuts+ you will go through the process of creating a website with an impressive interface based around promoting a mobile app. Using a wide range of techniques including shapes, textures, masks, custom icons, typography and much more that can be easily adapted and applied to your own web designs.

This tutorial from PSD-files.com teaches you how to create a clean, simple vintage website layout in Photoshop. Using some pre-made vintage PSD’s to help complete the look and style of the design this tutorial is easy to follow.

In this intermediate tutorial from PSD Tuts+ you will go through the extremely detailed step-by-step process to create a web 2.0 layouts using a variety of Photoshop techniques. With the level of detail paid to making this layout shine, this tutorial is fairly long, but entirely worthwhile.

Important lessons learned in this tutorial:

Using the 960 grid system

Using rulers and guides for alignment

Using gradient overlay

Using layer masks and gradients to create image reflections

Using the free transform tool

Using various marquee tool styles for detail

Using the custom shape tool

Using the rounded rectangle tool

Using clipping masks

Using the color overlay

More on Page Two

We are halfway down through the tuts, so don’t quit now, there is still so much more knowledge being dropped on page two of the post!